"Rumplestiltskin!"
The imp was a little slow in responding to the summons, but his magic was not: it carried him promptly, though he was barely awake, across lands and time to the caller. Glancing about her small abode, Rumplestiltskin would have liked a few minutes to himself to look around at the strange new world, one to which he'd never been called, one full of buzzing and humming and flashing things that sucked power from the sky through wires and cords. Hard, all these objects were: solid and imposing, demanding attention at the same time they waited to serve. This was a world he would have liked very much to study—though he doubted if he would want to live here.
But he had been summoned, so this was no time for sightseeing. The magic put him to work straight away. He materialized in a well lived-in, well worked-in room with a desk and a cuckoo clock and some chairs, but the focal point, the heart and soul of this room, by far was its paper, seemingly an unending supply of paper, much of it written on, by hand or by machine; some of it bound into books. If the paper in this room had had any order to it—or rather, any order meant to assist a reader other than the owner of the room—he might call it a library (Belle would, though these books would hardly last her a weekend).
In the center of the room, staring up at the ceiling, stood a woman. Her hair was streaked with gray and her fingers were streaked with ink, and spectacles gave tell to the fact that she had done a lot of reading in her time—and from the looks of the papers strewn about her, a lot of writing. She opened her mouth, ready to call out again to the ceiling.
He cleared his throat gently to get her attention. Her head snapped down and she blinked and her mouth fell open, revealing quite a nice set of teeth (something Rumplestiltskin tended to always take notice of. Perhaps he would have to visit this world again sometime to learn its secret for such effective dental care). As her eyes connected with his—somewhat unusual; clients often failed to look him in the eye, as though he were some wild dog that would take threat from a direct gaze—he perceived that she wasn't afraid, as most of his callers were, or desperate, as all of his callers were. He took this to mean she was confident she would get what she wanted from him—and that suggested she had much to learn.
He bowed, sweeping one arm behind his back and the other before his chest. He did so appreciate the gracefulness of a good bow or curtsey. "Rumplestiltskin, at your service, my lady."
Although in her denim trousers and cotton blouse she was hardly dressed for the act, she curtseyed. Halfway decently, too (she must have practiced before his arrival). She gave her name without hesitation; didn't she know the power of names? But it was what she said next that identified her source of pride: "A storyteller."
"And what has led you to seek me, my lady?"
She folded her hands before her in a gesture that was humble but serene—again with the confidence. Well, many a caller had, in the beginning, expressed confidence, assuming they knew enough about him to manipulate or trick him; he'd soon taken them down a peg. They usually weren't so placid about it, though.
"I've been telling stories since before I could hold a pencil; of all the accomplishments in my long life, storytelling has given me the most satisfaction," she began. "To create worlds and populate them with creatures both common and fantastical—I think I know how Prospero felt when he said, 'O brave new world, that has such people in't.' I've been writing your story for the past two years now. See?" She urged him to approach her desk, upon which a hard, flat device lay open. He saw a row of words across its face. "Twenty-five completed stories on my laptop alone; twice as many on paper"—she circled her hand about the room, "unfinished. All of them your stories.
"I've poured every ounce my creativity into the telling. I've forsaken other interests, declined invitations from friends, gone nights without sleep so that I could create these stories. I've had kind and attentive readers who have encouraged and advised and sustained me, and with them as my support I've kept writing, writing because I love the characters as much as if they had sprung from my own head, as Athena did from Zeus. It's been a very long and satisfying love affair. But as I come to the end of my years as a storyteller, one wish remains, and so I've come to you for a deal."
"A deal is it, my lady?" And the imp's hands tented before his face, perhaps hiding a sly smile. "You have called upon the right source then. That is my function in the world. What is it you would have, specifically; and more importantly, what is it you have for me in return?"
"I want recognition. I want something tangible to show me that my stories have meant something to someone, that whether they've taught or entertained, my stories mattered."
"Recognition. . . ." The imp tapped his long, black-clawed fingers against his temple, as though in deep thought, but he and she both knew that was not the case, for, as was his wont, he had studied the situation before she had actually summoned him—he could hear the yearnings of a heart well before the yearner actually voiced them. And in turn, she had studied him before telling her first tale about him. But the seeming hesitation was all a part of the birthing process for a new deal, and in magic, processes must be followed in full, just as in storytelling, though the reader, in his silent collusion with the writer, knows even as he opens the book for the first time, a satisfying (if not happy, for not all stories can end with flowers and rainbows) ending awaits, the journey of getting to the ending must be taken.
And so Rumplestiltskin pretended to deliberate, and the writer pretended to wait, until, after the proper period of consideration had passed, the magic man said, "Tell you what, dearie: how would you like payment for your stories? Say, an ingot of gold for every reader for every story of mine you've told? We can split the profits fifty-fifty, and from what you've shown me, we'll both be well paid."
"That would indeed be a tangible representation of recognition for my work," the writer said, "but, as you might say, I'm coming to the end of my stay in this realm; my time is short, and therefore my material needs are few. What I have garnered from my paid labors will sustain me. No, though it's rare enough that a storyteller be paid for her stories, it's not payment I want. I want something even more rare."
The imp clasped his hands behind his back, his crocodile-skin vest pulling tight against his chest. Across the writer's den he strolled, one end to the other, in a slow stride, his vision turned inward. The writer thought then that he too was a storyteller, though (and she envied him this) he brought his imagined worlds to literal life, and selected his characters from a cast of breathing beings. She perceived that he saw this common ground too, and consequently might give her a deal that was not only fair—for in truth, all his deals were fair, though their resolutions seldom came out the way the requester expected—but favorable to her. And why not: to favor her would in turn favor him, for these were his stories too.
He noted as he strolled how she had chosen to live: her small apartment told him all about her, for it was clear she had spent little of her income on comfort or symbols of status, and in fact, the furnishings and the décor of the apartment indicated to him that few people were invited into this lair; those who were invited were primarily the ones she had created. They were everywhere: her characters had claimed space in every room, upon every wall, every chair, for strewn about the apartment he found pieces of their stories at every stage of development, from single-sentence plot concepts to multi-page outlines to notebooks filled with character biographies, quotations and pencil sketches. These characters, he surmised, were her siblings of the spirit, her husband and her children of the heart, her teachers and her students and her confidants, her lovers and beloveds.
This told him all he needed to know to make his choice, but out of respect to the process of the deal, he paused in mid-step and turned and suggested, "Let me see one of your stories."
She set a hand against her heart, as though insulted. "Only one?"
"One will suffice, dearie."
"But there are so many that I would have you read." She gestured helplessly toward her laptop. "To show you what I've learned about you, what I've tried to tell others about you."
"Just one, to show me what you can do."
"Well. . . ." She leaned over the computer, scanning the long list of titles.
"Don't show me one to impress me," he suggested. "Show me the one that means the most to you—not your readers, but you."
Her forehead smoothed, and the lines of tension around her mouth lengthened into smile lines. She closed her eyes in reflection, and then she bent over the keyboard, typing commands. "This is the one."
Gracefully, he seated himself at her desk, in her chair: a rocking chair, which at first glance might seem an odd match for a desk, but as he sat down, crossing his legs, and crossing one wrist over the other and resting them on his knee, he saw the practicality of her furniture choice, for a chair that can sway gently back and forth, back and forth, can ease the transition from the real world into the imagined world. And is it not, he reflected, the rocking chair that storytellers have preferred above all others from time immemorial?
So he sat, and he read, and though he had no idea how to operate a computer, he didn't have to know: magic moved the pages for him as his eyes skimmed the narrow lines. He made short work of the reading; hardly had he sat down than he twisted around in the rocking chair, uncrossed his wrists, uncrossed his legs—but he remained seated, because he really did like her rocking chair, so well in fact that if she now offered it as her share of the bargain, he would accept. He had many, many fine items in his castle, some of them priceless, some of them one of a kind, and some of them hard come by, but most of them more for the admiring than for the sitting. And he had not one rocking chair. Belle, he thought, would give this chair pride of place at the Great Hall window that looked out over the garden; here she could read as sunlight poured in through that window and as birds flitted about among her vegetables.
Or Bae, when he came home at last, could sit in this chair and rock in quick little excited movements as he described his adventures to a spellbound audience of his father and his step-mother.
The deal, as far as Rumplestiltskin was concerned, was as good as struck. "Very well, Word Spinner, let's set the terms of this deal."
But she surprised him, sputtering, "You—you've finished already? You read the entire story?" She glanced at the miniature cuckoo clock above the desk. "In less than five minutes?"
"I have," he answered, cocking his head in wonder at her insulted expression.
"But—but it took me ten months to write! It's more than two hundred thousand words!"
"Well, it's written in English. If you wanted me to read slower, you should have written it in Sanskrit or Hieroglyphics," he suggested, to be helpful.
"Two hundred thousand words!" she insisted again.
She was insulted to the point of being offended, so he stopped being a smart ass and softened his tone. "I read each one, I assure you."
She scrolled through the pages until she found the one she wanted, and she pointed to the monitor. "There—that paragraph. It took me eleven tries before I got it right. I sweated blood to find just the right words."
He turned his attention to the paragraph, and this time read it as slowly as he thought she wished him to. "It's very well done. Your description of me is insightful. Poetic."
"But don't you see—ten months—of my life! Twenty hours a week for ten months—for forty weeks, that's. . . ." Her fingers fluttered as she counted.
"Eight hundred hours," he supplied helpfully.
"And you read it in five minutes." Her shoulders slumped and her hands dropped listlessly to her sides.
"Ah." He understood now. And indeed it wasn't so far from what he felt, from time to time, when he'd spent months developing a spell to produce something that in the end materialized in a matter of seconds and was quickly snatched up by the buyer. To give so much of one's time and creativity to a project, only to have it consumed in a matter of seconds like so much cotton candy, the labor being so underappreciated—this feeling he knew. And then he knew what she really wanted, and he knew that to take the rocking chair in payment would demean the value of what she wanted. He would, then, let her name a price commensurate with the value she placed on his offering. "I will give your work the recognition that such dedication calls for. There is an award, I've heard, for stories such as these; I will. . . inspire. . . one of your readers to nominate this story for that award."
"And will you exert the same 'inspiration' over the voters to choose my story for the award?" Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, and he understood that to win through magic would defeat the purpose of her deal.
"No," he said. "Magic will influence the nomination only. We will trust that the voters will give the story a fair—and slow enough—reading. The recognition you seek will come from the reading, not from the winning."
Satisfied, she drew in a deep breath and released it. The toughest part of the negotiation was over, for she knew the Dark One craved to make deals, and what she had to offer would tempt him—though, she suspected, he wouldn't admit it aloud. "That's what I want. And what I will give in return is this: I'll make them love you."
His face betrayed no reaction, but watching the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed—because she'd studied him long enough to know that a catch of the breath was usually all the Dark One ever let slip—she saw that her offering came as a surprise. She knew, further, that her offer had found the chink in his armor. She pressed her advantage. "You know I can. You read my most loving story."
He raised a warning finger. "What makes you think, my little Word Spinner, that the Dark One wants to be loved?"
She smiled a little. "Because love is behind everything you've done, however wrongheaded, however cruel. That's the true nature of your curse. Not the rotten teeth and the scaly skin, not the fear you strike in others that keeps them at bay. It's that you continue to love, and everything you try to do for love turns out wrong, and the self-loathing that results from your failures is what you turn out to the world: you spare your pride by pushing other people into hating you. That's the tragedy. That's what makes you cursed. But this"—she gestured to her computer—"is a safe way, perhaps, for you to take a little of the love you need, at enough of a distance that you can preserve your curse, for Bae's sake." She took a step forward and lowered her voice, as though concerned that a third party might hear, though they were quite alone. "So, Rumplestiltskin, will you accept my deal?"
"How will I know if you've, ah, upheld your end of the bargain?"
"Read the reviews, dearie. Read the reviews and watch the love trickle in, word by word."
He stood, signaling an end to the negotiation. "It's a small thing you're asking of my magic," he surmised. "I suppose if you're wrong, I'm not out much."
She held out her hand and waited for his handshake. "We have a deal, then."
He shook her hand. "We have a deal."
He summoned forth a purple cloud of magic to carry him away, but then he hesitated. "Uhm, perhaps I could borrow that"—he pointed to her laptop—"for the evening. I should like to read the other stories."
She ducked her head in a small bow. "For the evening, it's yours."
"Some of these stories," he glanced at the titles, "feature Belle, I suppose?"
"Most certainly."
"And Bae?"
"Always. Bae is at the center of every Rumplestiltskin story, whether the reader sees him or not."
"Very well then." The laptop vanished and the purple cloud rose around the imp again. "And congratulations on your nomination."
"Send my laptop back first thing tomorrow," she called after his fading image. "I have many more stories to write. Oh, and when you come back, let's talk about the Emmys and giving a certain actor the recognition he deserves."